I explained my position in the book (or my lack of a position): I see no need to take a stand on this historically unimportant question.

But if we have now discovered that this text was not edited by the Holy One, blessed be He, but by a later editor, then the expositions that were based on the mistaken assumption (for the sake of discussion) in the first place lose their force (such as the exposition of the three occurrences of the prohibition against cooking meat in milk). That is also why there is a need to take a position regarding the historical question.
As for the argument from divine inspiration, it doesn’t seem to me that it has the power to create laws with the status of Torah-level law the way expositions do.

I didn’t understand the question. I already explained it. Esther was spoken with divine inspiration and therefore was given to be expounded. Even if the Torah was edited in a later period, the question is whether it was edited with divine inspiration or by ordinary literary editing. If it was edited with divine inspiration, it was given to be expounded. As for whether these expositions would then be Torah-level or rabbinic-level, Maimonides holds that all expositions are of rabbinic origin. Beyond that, there is no reason to assume that an exposition of a text from the Book of Esther must have the same status as an exposition on the Torah.
And beyond all that, editing does not necessarily mean intervention in the details of the verse; it may just weave the verses together (as I brought from Schwartz in the book). So most expositions are not affected by it at all.
And all this assumes that divine inspiration is needed in order to expound, which I also questioned above.

I mean weaving-type editing. From what I understood from Schwartz, the editor of the Torah had several documents before him, and he unified them into one document. To do that, he had to omit unnecessary duplications and change the order of the verses so that there would be chronological order among all the combined documents. This editorial act causes some of the expositions found in the Sages—such as those that relate to the number of occurrences of a certain thing in the Torah (the 39 labors, the 3 occurrences of the prohibition of a kid in its mother’s milk)—to lose their relevance, because the number of occurrences was not determined by the Holy One, blessed be He, but by the editor of the Torah, and therefore has no special significance. Likewise, expositions based on duplicate formulations, such as the prohibition of a false oath and a lying oath, become void, because the duplication was not placed in the text intentionally by the Holy One, blessed be He, but because the editor of the Torah decided not to give up that specific duplication for some reason.

P.S.
The Talmud discusses the source for the prohibition against deriving benefit from meat in milk:
Babylonian Talmud, tractate Kiddushin 57b
Meat in milk—from where do we know it? For the school of Rabbi Ishmael taught: “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk” is stated three times—one for the prohibition of eating, one for the prohibition of deriving benefit, and one for the prohibition of cooking. Our Mishnah is not in accordance with this tanna, as it was taught: Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah says: Meat in milk is forbidden for eating but permitted for benefit, as it is stated: “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; you shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk,” and elsewhere it says: “And you shall be holy men to Me.” Just as there it is forbidden for eating and permitted for benefit, so too here it is forbidden for eating and permitted for benefit.

If there is really substance to the Documentary Hypothesis, then there is room to change the halakhic ruling and decide like Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah, who does not base the derivation on a consideration that has turned out to be irrelevant.

First, the weaving does not necessarily intervene in the content. And even if, as you say, they omitted duplications, why didn’t they omit this duplication? Apparently because it was given to be expounded. Especially if this was done with divine inspiration.

There could be many considerations behind the act of editing, such as preserving chronological continuity, logical continuity, connection to what was said before and after, and so on. When one comes to expound an apparently superfluous occurrence, one has to take possible editorial considerations into account as well. Only when there is no other reasonable explanation for the superfluous occurrence can one say that the surplus was prepared for exposition.

If you have time, I’m attaching a lecture by Baruch Schwartz that describes possible editorial considerations in the story of Hagar fleeing from Sarai:

You are assuming that the Sages were unaware of the editorial considerations. But they assumed that those considerations were guided by divine inspiration. The burden of proof is on the one raising the difficulty, not on the one resolving it. You are arguing against them—bring proof that the editing was driven by other considerations.

As I understand it, the Sages were not aware of this editing at all. They thought the entire text was written and edited by the Holy One, blessed be He. Only in our generation did people begin to discover, using advanced research tools, that this is not necessarily the reality. It may be that if the Sages had known this was the case, they would have expounded differently.

I’m not at all sure of that. What they knew was that the text was written with divine inspiration and therefore could be expounded. Whether everything was given at Sinai or whether there were later edits with divine inspiration is not necessarily important.
True, it is possible that if they had known it was edited they would have retracted, but that is not necessary. I seem to recall that I also noted this in the book.

Regarding the editing itself, assuming there was such editing, I wanted to ask whether it wouldn’t have been proper for the editor at least to tell us about the very act of editing and also to make the raw materials before editing known to the public? It seems that this matter was deliberately concealed for some reason.

That is an anachronistic question. Until Rabbeinu Tam, people emended directly inside the Talmud without noting that an emendation had been made. Only Rabbeinu Tam’s enactment established that one should not emend inside the book itself, but only by notes in the margin (like the glosses of the Bach).
Beyond that, if the editing was done with divine inspiration, perhaps there was no need to clarify that there had been editing. It is an instruction from above, and there is no reason people should have the unedited source passages.

Rabbi, it sounds from your words as though Ezra wove the documents together with divine inspiration. Do you really think so, and if so, what led you to assume that?

Even if the weaving together of the documents did not touch their content, expositions based on adjacent passages lose their force.

The people of Judah, Israel, and the other Hebrew tribes in the editor’s time were split into countless sects holding contradictory teachings. Here sat the Yahwists and there the Elohists; here sat the Priestly people and there the Deuteronomists. And all of them, in the Jewish way, were stubborn and would fight with all their might for the tradition of their ancestors.

It is impossible to imagine that rival sects would accept the authority of an editor making a “mix” of different and contradictory approaches, without this arousing fierce disputes in the way of stiff-necked Jews, and without any trace at all remaining of the original sects.

Such an editing, which would swallow up everything that preceded it until “it could not be known that they had gone into its innards,” could naturally have been carried out only by a strong central ruler who, by the force of his absolute power, crushed every pocket of resistance and erased its memory from the face of the earth. And somehow we have heard of no such central ruler.

Therefore one must conclude that the mysterious editor of the Bible had supernatural powers, by means of which he hypnotized all the various opposing sects and imposed on them a uniform Torah. But we are puzzled: if the editor had such wondrous powers, why didn’t he use them to force all the dispersed of Israel to return to their land and establish there “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,” as he desired? This requires further thought 🙂

Best regards,
Samson Zadok HaKohen Priesterkodkovsky
halakhic authority of the holy community of the Priestly folk, Tel Aviv on the River Chebar

Or perhaps it was a female editor, one of the lean cows from Joseph’s dream, for they had the talent of swallowing up everything before them without a trace or sign. Indeed, if a lean cow edited the Torah—then clearly its theology must also be lean.

Natan, what leads me is the tradition we received that the Torah is from Heaven and was given to be expounded.
Ariel, not at all. If the editing was with divine inspiration, then they would have been careful about adjacency.

It is true that tradition says the Torah is given to be expounded, but only where the text is suitable for exposition, such as an apparent surplus. If we discover that the Torah was edited by a later editor, then a double occurrence in the Torah is no longer considered something superfluous, because the surplus can be explained in another way besides preparation for exposition, and therefore the place is no longer suitable for exposition. It is like discovering that the verse “You shall fear the Lord your God” had been altered, and its original wording was “The Lord your God you shall fear,” meaning the word “et” had been artificially inserted. In that situation, the exposition that includes Torah scholars would fall away. The same applies here regarding expositions from adjacency and meat in milk, for example.

Rabbi, I don’t understand—is it really possible to deny the logic expressed in Oren’s comments? Is the philosophical conclusion that God gave the Torah so strong that your inner sense of honesty does not feel impaired by the number of excuses that have to be invented for that purpose?
Of course one can disagree with the whole theory, and for every difficulty find dismissive answers—each according to his own judgment—but from your side you accept all the theories and produce explanations as needed, and you don’t feel the great strangeness that comes out of all this.

Oren, we’re repeating ourselves. If the editing was done with divine inspiration, then leaving a double occurrence definitely justifies exposition.

Eliezer, I actually do understand. There is no need to invent even the slightest excuse. Either you accept the tradition or you don’t. If you trust the tradition except where it seems a corruption has crept in—then that is the required conclusion. I explained this in the finest detail. If you don’t accept it—so be it.

The assumption you made above was not that the editing was done with divine inspiration, but that the Torah is given to be expounded. That does not necessarily imply that the editing was done with divine inspiration. It may have been done for earthly reasons, and that still would not contradict the assumption that the Torah is given to be expounded. It’s just that exposition is possible where we have no other reasonable explanation for the textual phenomenon (such as duplication or surplus within a verse). But duplication between different documents is not an irrational textual phenomenon, and so there is no need to expound it. Just as duplication between things that appear in the Torah and in the Prophets/Writings is not a phenomenon requiring special explanation.

The assumption that the Torah was given to be expounded does not come in the form of a general instruction. It is a living tradition of expositions, some of which are of this kind. And from this I infer precisely that its being given to be expounded is grounded in the assumption of a divine source for the text and its arrangement.

But that same living tradition also gives a reason for expounding the arrangement of the text—that it was arranged by the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself. If that reason falls away, then the possibility of expounding the arrangement of the text also falls away.

It was indeed arranged by Him, through people with divine inspiration who did so. That is what the tradition says. Just as at the revelation at Mount Sinai there are many surrounding details that are not necessarily correct. But the core—that there was an encounter with the Holy One, blessed be He—does not depend on them.

In the second book of the trilogy, on page 555, you said something a bit different:

“We can also say that, in light of the findings of modern biblical scholarship, we should adopt the view of Rabbi Ishmael. Even so, this is certainly not a ‘death blow’ theologically. I would add that even if the Talmudic sages thought otherwise, there is an assumption on their part that the entire source of the text is divine, but it is entirely possible that in light of the information we have today we will conclude that they were mistaken about this and not accept their words on this point. I will mention here what we have already seen earlier, that one cannot accept a claim of authority regarding facts, unless those facts originate in a tradition from Sinai.”

Rabbi, what tradition are we talking about?
A father-to-son tradition? Because I think the overwhelming majority of the Jewish people would not say that the Torah was edited with divine inspiration. They would say it was not edited at all after Moses. And I’m convinced that until 200–300 years ago that was the overwhelming majority view.

Or do you mean that this is how the sages of the Talmud understood it, and that is what you call tradition?

Oren,
In the way lawyers speak, these are arguments “in the alternative.” First, one can infer from the tradition that the text was edited with divine inspiration, and second, one can adopt Rabbi Ishmael’s approach.

Natan,
As I wrote above, the tradition says that the Torah was given from the Holy One, blessed be He; the details are less important and less significant. Also regarding the revelation at Mount Sinai, I do not think one must accept that no bird chirped. What matters is the principle that it was given from the Holy One, blessed be He. By what route—that is already a matter of various myths and ethoses. Incidentally, that ethos could certainly have arisen in order to spare these difficulties. The easiest thing is to say that everything came down from Mount Sinai to the very last letter. But there are already medieval authorities who wrote that there are words or even verses that were not given from there. This does not contradict the tradition, because those are details. Broadly speaking, everything is from the Holy One, blessed be He, and that is what matters.

Theologically these are alternative arguments, but halakhically there is a difference between them and therefore one has to decide between them. Why do you prefer the divine inspiration argument over Rabbi Ishmael’s argument?

I do not necessarily prefer it. In order to reject the Sages’ expositions and assumptions, proof is required, and I do not have such proof.

The Documentary Hypothesis is itself the proof that negates the Sages’ assumption that the Torah is a unified text open to exposition across its entirety (and not only within each individual document). Now that this assumption has been negated, you are proposing an alternative explanation—that Ezra the Scribe edited the documents with divine inspiration, and then the text becomes unified again. But that is not the original assumption, and therefore no proof is needed to depart from that assumption.

In plain Hebrew, “proof” brought from a “hypothesis” is called begging the question.